In a statement, Stoic said King’s trademark claim is interfering with its plans to make another game in the series.

“We won’t make a viking saga without the word Saga, and we don’t appreciate anyone telling us we can’t,” the developer said.

“King.com claims they’re not attempting to prevent us from using The Banner Saga, and yet their legal opposition to our trademark filing remains. We’re humbled by the outpouring of support and honoured to have others stand with us for the right to their own Saga. We just want to make great games.”

Stoic’s Alex Thomas told Polygon that the developer filed a trademark for The Banner Saga before King put in its own claims.

“They’ve blocked our trademark and extended the deadline for the opposition twice so that we are unable to have the rights to the name,” he said.

“Essentially, we are not allowed to own the name ‘The Banner Saga’ for our game about a viking epic, because King.com says they have claimed rights to the noun ‘saga,’ which means ‘a viking epic,’ forever more in the realm of games.”

King, the company behind Candy Crush Saga, said in a statement issued yesterday that it isn’t trying to stop Stoic from using the word “saga”, but has to go through the legal motions in order to prevent future issues – but a sequel to The Banner Saga falls into this category, apparently, since Stoic is prevented from using the title.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/22/the-banner-saga-sequel-blocked-by-kings-trademark-claim/feed/20The Banner Saga marches to launch: Stoic talks style, stats and strategyhttp://www.vg247.com/2013/12/10/the-banner-saga-marches-to-launch-stoic-talks-style-stats-and-strategy/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/12/10/the-banner-saga-marches-to-launch-stoic-talks-style-stats-and-strategy/#commentsTue, 10 Dec 2013 08:00:02 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=432712Tactical RPG The Banner Saga will launch on January 14, over a year after it was funded on Kickstarter. VG247’s Dave Cook talks with ex-BioWare developer Alex Thomas to discover why this could be the biggest release of his career.

”I think for most game designers or developers everybody has that idea in their hip-pocket that they want to do some day, and it just happened the timing was right. We decided if we didn’t do it now, we probably never would.”

The Banner Saga was successfully funded on April 21, 2012, after 20,042 backers amassed a staggering $723,886 for the cause. Based in Austin, Texas, developer Stoic only consists of three people, but there’s one thing former BioWare colleagues Alex Thomas, Arnie Jorgensen and John Watson all have in common, and that’s a deep, practical understanding of what makes role-playing strategy work.

I spoke with Thomas over Skype recently and he professed to have played just about every turn-based strategy RPG he could lay his hands on, and comes bearing a profound love for a little game called Final Fantasy Tactics. It proved instrumental in his burning desire for the genre, and convinced him to make a career out of stats, turns, perma-death and moral choices. He previously worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic for around five years at BioWare Austin, and during that time he started to get the indie itch. With The Banner Saga’s base concept in mind, he and his fellow coders flew the coop and founded Stoic.

We’re now just weeks from the game’s launch on PC and Mac. It’s a turn-based RPG down to its bones, with many playable classes, comrades with complex back-stories, and the risk of perma-death that is guaranteed to make you very upset. There’s also morality, a multiplayer offering in the form of The Banner Saga: Factions, and a captivating art style reminiscent of Don Bluth’s Secret of Nimh, or his own videogames Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. At a time where titles like Fire Emblem: Awakening and XCOM: Enemy Unknown are turning heads, Stoic’s release couldn’t be more relevant.

“We had planned to start our own company before Kickstarter became a big thing,” Thomas told me. “Largely it was because the three of us were working together at BioWare, we knew each other, we knew that he timing was just right for us to set out and do something on our own. I think for most game designers or developers everybody has that idea in their hip-pocket that they want to do some day, and it just happened the timing was right. We decided if we didn’t do it now, we probably never would, so we had to go and start our own thing. That’s actually becoming more and more common I think. You’re starting to see little ‘triple-a’ indies popping up all over the place.”

”The biggest take-away from that is, we found that we had created a system where every single point in a stat, every single ability mattered phenomenally. We kind of fudged numbers around and everything came down to single digits in terms of winning or losing.”

He explained that prior to leaving BioWare, the Stoic trio had The Banner Saga’s loose concept in place, and they felt so strongly about the idea, that it formed the basis of the whole company. Given Thomas, Jorgensen and Watson’s pedigree, there was no question that crafting a turn-based RPG was the correct way to go. For Thomas specifically, his self-professed area of expertise from his time at BioWare is branching stories. He called them “deceptively difficult,” and it certainly serves as a key driver of The Banner Saga’s episodic progression.

Being a ‘student’ of the genre, Thomas knows the big dos and don’t of the strategy RPG genre, and he forewarned me that it’s a notoriously strenuous genre by design. This is abundantly clear to all and sundry, but I wanted to know in practical development terms just how much effort has gone into making sure The Banner Saga’s skirmishes play out fluidly and how to ensure that every hint of character progression makes a profound impact in the field. Thomas told me that his education on all things turn-based started with the original XCOM and simply, snowballed from there.

“I think I understand what makes it fun,” he mused, “but on the other hand we kind of went with the more dangerous route, in which we said we wanted to make something that felt original. So we didn’t take an existing game and build off of that, which is an iterative process which is fairly common in game development, because it’s a lot safer. We decided to make a unique turn-based system with game mechanics that people hadn’t really seen before. Part of proofing that out was what we did with The Banner Saga: Factions, which was our free multiplayer.

“The biggest take-away from that is, we found that we had created a system where every single point in a stat, every single ability mattered phenomenally. We kind of fudged numbers around and everything came down to single digits in terms of winning or losing, and that absolutely helped us refine the combat system. We also added a lot of features based on that, and it seemed if the balance was swinging one way or another we were able to adjust for it. I think what a lot of people were telling us was that it was one of the best-balanced strategy games out there.”

”The nice thing about our game, as in many turn-based strategy games like Fire Emblem: Awakening is, with a huge ensemble cast you can keep introducing new characters. For example, the second game is going to have enough new characters that I think it’ll feel distinctly different from the first.”

Thomas stressed that when Stoic went into the project the trio thought they were making a fun, almost casual take on the genre, but almost immediately realised just how hardcore people were taking it. The project simply grew deeper from that point and by being independent, the team could take as much time as it needed to make sure the underlying mechanics functions in a way that made sense. We’re now essentially a month from launch, and the team has entered a phase of eleventh-hour polish and quality-checking. To see a small team making a game of this size off its own back, and with the help of the public, is nothing short of inspired.

The game was delayed by about a year as it grew more ambitious, and Thomas conceded that he initial date was both “naive and ridiculous” on Stoic’s part, but for the team’s first release, it has certainly shown that the additional time has paid dividends. That said, Thomas added that if he could go back and change one thing about the Kickstarter campaign, it would be that initial launch date. I asked him what his plan was for The Banner Saga’s second and third episodes, and when development would begin.

“We have some stretch goals from the Kickstarter that are based on the multiplayer,” he replied. “So for the multiplayer we mentioned city-building and that’s something we want to implement before we start working on the second game. But then I think we’re going to pay some attention to Factions for a couple of months, then we’ll be back to focus on the next game in the series. We’re looking at it like a trilogy like Lord of the Rings, so within each game you have a single start-to-finish arc that should be pretty satisfying. And then within the larger picture of what’s happening in the world, you have a three-part trilogy.

“The nice thing about our game, as in many turn-based strategy games like Fire Emblem: Awakening is, with a huge ensemble cast you can keep introducing new characters. For example, the second game is going to have enough new characters that I think it’ll feel distinctly different from the first, and will both have their own unique stories.” Once again, I need to add-in the threat of perma-death. With each character having deep stories and personalities – instead of a randomly rolled avatar – the threat of losing your favourite cast member is all the more poignant.

I couldn’t conduct my interview without asking Thomas about the game’s whimsical art style which, again, mirrors the work of Don Bluth and the early years of Disney’s motion picture filmography. Would this art style result in a harder sell for the Banner Saga, had Stoic sought the aid of a publisher over Kickstarter? “Probably a harder sell,” he replied, “although it’s hard to say. We didn’t go to any publishers so we’re not sure if it would have been rejected outright or not, but it was definitely liberating to make a decision like the art style where, I think, at BioWare or wherever, we had gone and said, ‘we want to an art style based on Eyvind Earle from Sleeping Beauty,’ I don’t think too many people would have jumped on that.

“We wanted something that would separate us. There’s lots of very ‘World of Warcraft’-looking, cartoony games, and we thought this art style matched more with the mature theme we wanted to go for. So one of the key selling points has been how much everybody loves the art style and what’s interesting when you said it reminded you of Don Bluth is, depending on where a person is from, they always tell us it reminds them of something different, which I think is always interesting.”

Development of The Banner Saga has clearly been a labour of love for Stoic and a steep learning curve in flying solo. If this is the end result, then it shows that the team clearly has the skills and adaptability needed to make an intriguing, deep and attractive title in what is an increasingly malleable industry. You’ve probably heard this a hundred times already but we really are in the middle of a golden age, in which smart, creative people can turn their dream pitches into a reality.

Would this game and its peers have been made under stringent publisher rule. It’s hard to see, but Thomas stressed that if The Banner Saga Kickstarter had failed, Stoic would have made it regardless, but with a strictly pared-back running time and lesser production values. Thanks to Kickstarter, this is now a high-quality piece of entertainment, with a dynamic score from Austin Wintory, professional art and sound effects, a solid running time over three episodes, complicated strategy mechanics and much, much more.

If this reality – in which the talent is calling all the shots and creating unbounded pieces of art – is where wallet-voting is taking the industry, then I say let people vote. Thomas concluded in saying that publishers are not evil, an aren’t necessarily a negative influence on game development. He stressed that they too are smart, and handle the business of game development and sales exceedingly well. Stoic is lucky to have taken the plunge and come out relatively dry without their help. It has earned its shot at the market through hard graft, a solid concept and immense skill.

We’ll see exactly how all of this effort bears fruit come January 14.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/12/10/the-banner-saga-marches-to-launch-stoic-talks-style-stats-and-strategy/feed/2The Banner Saga’s story will be determined via conversation and travel decisionshttp://www.vg247.com/2013/02/02/the-banner-sagas-story-will-be-determined-via-conversation-and-travel-decisions/
http://www.vg247.com/2013/02/02/the-banner-sagas-story-will-be-determined-via-conversation-and-travel-decisions/#commentsSat, 02 Feb 2013 21:52:38 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=336066Stoic Studio has updated its Kickstarter page for The Banner Saga with a lengthy entry regarding how combat, conversation and travel will tie together the branching storylines in the single-player portion.

The story will be driven by dialogue, which will in turn be affected by events which occur when the player exploring and travelling. It will also be impacted by decisions made, and these decisions will affect the game as whole.

“By having largely text-driven and modular gameplay, we can produce a ton of high-quality content quickly and cheaply,” wrote creative director Alex Thomas. “While a standard RPG requires cinematics, voiceovers, 3d art, lighting, scripting and unique animations for each and every event, our advantage is in creating less expensive but vastly larger amounts of content.

“If you’ve ever wondered why older games like Planescape and Fallout could afford to have deep and rich stories with lots of characters and cool ideas like unique “low intelligence” dialogue while modern games somehow fail to match their predecessors, it’s because they could produce a lot of content quickly and cheaply, and leaves the details to player’s imagination. It’s a trade-off for modern cinematic presentation, but one that we think is the right decision for The Banner Saga.

“Additionally, this style of production lets us iterate the writing up until the last moment. It’s impossible to overstate how important this is… the ability to be agile and make changes to existing parts of the game based on new ideas gives you the best chance to make something exceptional.”

Some decisions will even have to be made about where to travel, how to budget time and resources, each having a “huge effect” on the player’s journey across the land.

Exploration mode will be entered when camping out in cities, and in some instances this can trigger an event which will cause the player to once again make decisions which will impact the story one way or another.

Decisions can also be the cause of future events in the game.

The team’s goal is to release The Banner Saga sometime during mid-2013 release.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2013/02/02/the-banner-sagas-story-will-be-determined-via-conversation-and-travel-decisions/feed/3The Banner Saga is “DOTA for the turn-based crowd”http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/07/the-banner-saga-is-dota-for-the-turn-based-crowd/
http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/07/the-banner-saga-is-dota-for-the-turn-based-crowd/#commentsWed, 07 Mar 2012 21:40:14 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=240419The ex-SWTOR developers at Stoic Games have a quite unusual take on strategy gameplay lined up for first effort The Banner Saga.

Creative director Alex Thomas told Shack News that The Banner Saga isn’t a “major shift” from standard turn-based tactics, but does hope it will feel “fresh and unique”.

“Think of it like DoTA for the turn-based crowd, but instead of controlling one character you build a deck of characters with abilities that complement each other,” he said.

“We’ve played a lot of nail-biting multiplayer games against each other so far that make me think people will really dig it. We’re not going to make it impenetrable for new players, but for people who really want strategy in their games, they’ll find a lot of depth here. I think even hardcore gamers will be surprised that they can’t just brute-force their way through a fight; it requires some finesse.”

Stoic also hopes to present a fresh-feeling fantasy story and setting, choosing viking culture as the backdrop because it’s so rarely treated seriously in games.

“One of our major goals for The Banner Saga was the opportunity to do a mature game for adults in the vein of Game of Thrones or The Black Company. When we say it’s a mature story, we want the player to understand it’s about cultural intrigue and the relationships between the characters, not sex, swearing and violence,” Thomas said.

“It’s also not about high fantasy and dragons and magic, and it’s not about black and white, good versus evil. We knew we wanted a fantasy setting, but desperately wanted to avoid the very overdone ‘elves, dwarves and orcs’ dynamic.”

The Banner Saga will release in two parts. The first, due in northern spring, is a free, stand-alone combat title. The second will go on sale in northern autumn and packs in an extensive story mode.

]]>http://www.vg247.com/2012/03/07/the-banner-saga-is-dota-for-the-turn-based-crowd/feed/3“Why wouldn’t you” go indie, ex-BioWare dev askshttp://www.vg247.com/2012/02/21/why-wouldnt-you-go-indie-ex-bioware-dev-asks/
http://www.vg247.com/2012/02/21/why-wouldnt-you-go-indie-ex-bioware-dev-asks/#commentsTue, 21 Feb 2012 22:05:28 +0000http://www.vg247.com/?p=235112After working at one of the most respected and successful developers in the world, the three ex-BioWare staffers at Stoic Games are happy to be independent.

“Why wouldn’t you want to get into indie development?” creative director Alex Thomas asked The Indie Game Magazine.

“Working at BioWare was a great experience for all three of us and being part of one of the biggest games ever made was pretty incredible, but I can’t think of a single developer out there who doesn’t dream of making their own games.”

Thomas said choosing to self-fund rather than find a backer was easy.

“We’ve all been around the industry for a while and know that if somebody is paying you they call the shots, you may as well stay at a company,” he said.

“Plus, convincing a publisher to fund a 2D turn-based strategy game just wasn’t going to happen.”

The developer reiterated that Stoic just wants to make the kinds of games it wants to play.

“You’d be surprised how many companies sit down and go ‘What game should we make? What do the kids like these days? Ok, a shooter.’ A lot of companies are formed before they even know what they want to make,” he said.

“Shooters, MMOs, big sandbox games and casual little games are all great but there are plenty of amazing options already out there. Nobody is begging for another game on that pile. We definitely think there is a hole forming around the role-playing genre and strategy games are drying up.

“Publishers would say that there aren’t enough people to support it, but unlike a huge development team we don’t need to sell tens of millions and we think there are plenty of people who want what we’re making, including us.”

Stoic’s debut title, The Banner Saga, will release in two parts, first in northern spring as as a free, multiplayer-combat game, and then as a full, paid RPG in northern autumn.